In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Such a simple sentence but with so much meaning bound up in it.

“In the beginning…” – this is at the start of it all. The beginning of the created universe and with it comes the concept of time.

“God created…” – this speaks volumes about God. He didn’t just build something as you or I did, but created something out of nothing, ex nihilo. This is true creation, being able to make something that had never been. To illustrate this, I think back to an example a friend used on me once. In it he had me try to create an all new color. The trouble was that no matter how hard I tried, all I could think about were colors made from other colors. I simply could not invent something that wasn’t made from something else. This is the nature of human creation. We “create” out of something but God creates out of nothing.

“God created the heavens and the earth.” – this is profound – especially in light of all that we know today of the universe we are in. The heavens here include every heaven you could imagine, especially those of the stars and planets in the night sky. These are seemingly an endless array of stars, space dust, planets, moons, asteroids, nebula, etc.

There is also a contrast here as God also created Earth. Earth is just another planet among the heavens but it is specifically mentioned here as a specified work of God. The heavens reference is effectively general but also immense and then we have Earth which is singular and just one planet out of many. Earth is here because God put it here by his sovereign choice and in that choice, we see a being with deliberate action and the ability to carry out that which He sets to do. There are no hindrances. He does it and it is as he chooses. We see no whim here.

The contrast here between the heavens and Earth also serves to emphasize that Earth is important. Out of all the billions of stars and planets out there, the earth is specifically brought up. Not Mars, not Venus, nor any other planet we’ve come to know exists. Just this rock we call Earth.